The booming and deep voice heard on All India Radio in early fifties was of Devaki Nandan Pandey who was popularly known as Karod Kandan Pandey. He always read out news of development projects that the Nehru government was launching to push the economic growth to higher pace. As news reader, he easily reeled out new projects of outlays running into hundreds of crore rupees thrice a day in main news bulletins.
Two Hindi news bulletins relayed on Akashvani were heard all over the country. Radio sets took time to reach homes though they did reach even small hotels and dhabas as they were an effective instrument to lure customers to them for tea and morning snacks. But the booming voice of the news reader had fuller attention since spread of literacy was still limited.
No one could miss the emphasis that Prime Minister Nehru had put on the economic development because poverty was a norm. He was impatient to make a dent on it and pull out the country from the abyss of poverty, illiteracy as well as economic disparities and inequalities.
It was a norm then to measure economic development in terms of Gross Domestic Product than on scales of improvement in life expectancy, fewer diseases, better education and more leisure time for every one to spend with their families. The quality of life was a concept that had not intruded to politicians’ minds then.
While the government was driving to minds of growing young generation that economic development was the top priority, there was no attempt to inculcate other values and principles of life. It was not realised that the value of a rising standard of living lies not just in concrete achievements but how it shapes the social, political and moral character of the people.
True, the private sector, corporations or individuals have no commitment to any national or social objectives except profits. But the policy of closed windows on them to overcome their reluctance to accept social commitment became the main source of spreading corruption and weakening the moral fibre of Indian society. The industrial policy embedded in bureaucracy uncontrolled power for state intervention in every aspect of economic activity that created a wider scope for corruption.
The government control and power of intervention made it mandatory to obtain licenses and permits for any economic activity. Power was misused according to whims or fancies of official in charge. The only way to overcome deliberate red tape was either to corrupt the system or adopt illegal means to carry on business as desired. The violation of law became cheaper than compliance even in admission to educational institutes run by governments.
The government also adopted the policy of state discrimination in favour of underprivileged sections through reservations. It did not breed tolerance for the underprivileged but intolerance towards them. The benefit of reservation made boy or girl of underprivileged class a medical practitioner but not acceptable as equal by the rest. It was assumed technical skill was not based on merit but due to advantage of discrimination by the state. Thus, those who got benefit of reservations suffered a double stamp of unacceptability by society at large. They were made to suffer yet another kind of untouchability.
Moral obligation demanded that development processes aim at pulling out the deprived from their abyss. Rajiv Gandhi refused to comment on the Mandalised reservations as he felt that it was touchy. Then he added that his party leader had derived benefits for 13 times for his family.
There was also a mismatch between the political objectives model and the economic development model. India adopted a liberal political system of participant governance with adult franchise and guaranteed individual freedoms. However, doors to the economic activities were virtually closed to individuals. The need for corrupting the system to move ahead in the economic field distorted the distribution of gains of even slow-rated economic growth in the first 40 years of Independence.
With only 10 per cent of population grabbing nearly 90 per cent gains, it led to glaring disparities and inequalities. The economic reforms adopted two decades earlier pushed another 10 per cent to a bracket of comfortable incomes but life for the lower 20 per cent remained stagnated at Rs 20 a day expenditure capacity. All growth has made no dent on their lives.
Owing to the mismatch between the two models, economic growth could not lend its shoulders to strengthening of democracy with a rightful place to socially and educationally deprived classes. The clear image of distortion is visible in the 15th Lok Sabha where nearly half the elected representatives are wealthy as they have claimed in their sworn affidavits that their assets were worth ten million and above brackets. The situation in the state legislatures is no different.
Development strategies would have acquired a different character if planners had kept in mind the need for moral obligations of economic development, particularly on need to pull the poor from the abyss of poverty before the other sections were able to gallop to the winning post. But economic development with its fierce emphasis for the past six decades has shaped the Indian conscience where there is no place for moral obligation or compunction for the poor.
The neo-rich or first-time automobile owners drive their vehicles at a breakneck speed as if roads are not meant for pedestrians. Pedestrians are scornfully dismissed as hindrances to their pace of progress.
Political parties felt no moral obligation to bring them in on to the voters’ list by giving them identity as Indians. Naturally, they could not breed pride in them to be Indians or in the most whose aim and objectives are limited to economic betterment of the self and the family. They are not concerned with society or country. That is the distorted conscience.
Source: The Tribune, Chandigarh, India.
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